1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of information handling system component drivers, and more particularly to a system and method for consolidated information handling system component drivers.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems are typically built from a variety of hardware components that are manufactured by a variety of companies. Generally, the hardware components cooperate to process information under the direction of an operating system, such as WINDOWS. In order to easily adapt to the wide variety of available components, operating systems often load drivers prepared by the manufacturers of the components. The drivers define operations performed by the components and communications between the components and the operating system. Some examples of components that use drivers include printers, displays, storage devices, and networking devices including wireless local area network (WLAN) devices. Information handling systems are typically manufactured to include an operating system that is preconfigured with drivers to support hardware components included in the systems. For example, as an information handling system is built to include specific hardware components, drivers associated with the components are included in an operating system image that is copied to the hard disk drive of the information handling system. When an end user powers up the information handling system, the operating system has the drivers that it needs to ensure proper operation of the included components.
One difficulty with preparing an image for use on an information handling system is identification of the components used in the system and their associated drivers. Tracking the use of multiple drivers for multiple types of components can present a significant challenge. The challenge is sometimes increased where the operation of certain components depends upon government regulations for the component. For example, regulatory requirements for WLAN devices, such as 802.11 devices, require country specific behaviors and channel support. Each specific behavior and channel support typically requires a specialized driver and, sometimes, country specific hardware. An example, the United States and Japan each have their own WLAN requirements and each will not allow a switch or selector that allows and end user to select a specific region, although any number of countries or regions may set their own requirements. By comparison, most other countries will allow region selection with a switch or selector. Thus, information handling system manufacturers typically must support each region with a unique driver for each WLAN component. This entails a region specific update capability to aid users with installation or reinstallation of a driver and testing of each WLAN component with each driver.